Distributed computing system architecture

ABSTRACT

A computing system architecture is based upon a peer-to-peer, asynchronous model. The architecture specifies a set of infrastructure facilities that comprise an inter-prise operating system. The inter-prise operating system provides all the facilities that make application coding as easy in the peer-to-peer asynchronous model as it is in a hierarchical, synchronous model. Services, which reside in containers, are linked asynchronously by an inter-prise bus and use data from a virtual data store.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

The present application claims the benefit of U.S. ProvisionalApplication Ser. No. 60/271,353, filed Feb. 22, 2001, titled COMPUTINGSYSTEM ARCHITECTURE.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates generally to the field of distributedcomputing system architectures. More particularly, the present inventionprovides a computing system architecture in which asynchronous services,which reside in containers, are linked by an inter-enterprise systembus, and use data from a virtual data store. The computing systemarchitecture of the present invention finds particular application inthe field of electronic commerce.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART

Currently, a substantial amount of business is conducted usingelectronic commerce. There have been several phases in the developmentof electronic commerce. In each of these phases, more flexibility hasbeen added to the way systems are constructed. Additionally, with eachphase, the way systems perform has changed radically for both businessesand customers.

Prior to the development of the Internet, the typical structure ofsystems was to build a set of initially monolithic back-end servers, andthen add new services in front of these to communicate with clients. Athree-tier model of computing evolved, with an intermediate applicationserver that addressed the problems of manageability and scalability asthe number of clients grew. In practice, these systems were never assimple as the architectural diagrams made them out to be. They generatedislands of computing, each with incompatible services and clusters ofinaccessible data. This led to a spider's web of interconnected activityand ensured that little problems at one end of the network became largeproblems throughout the network. A new class of software was developedto integrate heterogeneous services.

True electronic commerce began with Web sites, brochures, and manualorder entry. Initially, the Web was treated as just another client.There was a class of simple application Web servers that created its owndata and used its own protocols. The simplest applications to write wereread-only brochure and e-mail order entry systems, which allowed moreefficient distribution of information. They did not, however, have asignificant impact on the customer experience and did not changeconsumer behavior. Competition among early adopters centered around whohad the most seductive graphics and interactive content. These systemstypically were flashy front-ends attached to unchanged back-end systems.Much of the real work was still done by people.

On the application development front, first generation applicationstended to be monolithic. In particular, the details of writingwell-behaved applications were not separated from business logic.Well-behaved applications have to address a number of system integrationissues, including security, user interaction (presentation), persistence(data access), systems management, and interprocess communication. In afirst generation program, all these elements were contained within a fewlines of code. This duplication of code had a severe impact onmaintenance because finding and fixing redundant modules was costly. Theimpact on extensibility was also serious because it was difficult tochange distributed system integration functions. Finally, the impact ofreliability was substantial because a change in one system integrationfunction had the potential to impact all other functions.

For many industries, the first generation model created little customervalue. This was true for the stock brokerage industry. The firstgeneration companies did not deliver real-time products electronically.The brokerage industry operates in a real-time world where prices changecontinuously and transaction completion requires integration with marketdata providers, trading venues, and settlement agencies. This mandatesthe integration of multiple inputs, processes and outputs.

In the second generation of electronic commerce, the entire customerinteraction, from entering an order to delivering the end result, isdone online. The customer becomes acutely aware of the underlyingfrailties of the assorted systems that perform the subprocesses of theorder. The design of these systems reflects to customers the status ofthe respective processes.

Second generation development practices began to emphasize theseparation between system integration concerns and business logic. Atfirst, this separation took the form of modularization, which separatedthe procedures that encapsulate business logic from those that performsystem integration. A further step was then taken to isolate the systemintegration routines into modules that could be called. This reducedgreatly the amount of duplication, although there was still muchduplicate code in the calls to APIs. The second generation alsofacilitated extensibility because changes in system integrationfunctions were localized within a module. Finally, because clients coulddepend only on APIs, reliability improved. However, developers wereresponsible for invoking API functionality in a timely and correctmanner.

Prior to the Internet, old-line financial institutions monopolizedaccess to information. They turned the resulting customer ignoranceabout products and performance into profits. Access to information hasallowed customers to disintermediate commissioned brokers as informationdistributors and take control of their financial lives. The Internet hasempowered customers with more information and choices. The Interneteconomy has shifted the balance of power to customers.

Current electronic commerce systems have two salient characteristics.First, they are divided primarily along business and applicationownership lines. The system and application boundaries are determinedexclusively by the organization that owns the application or service.The second characteristic is that they are built with data controlresiding in physical control. Data belongs to a particular business andthat business determines its location, which forces accessingapplications to choose between deployment on that same platform orinferior performance. The combination of these two factors has led to atightly coupled, monolithic, centralized model with a classic two- orthree-tiered client/server architecture.

Most current applications are synchronous, hierarchical variants of theclient/server model. Once the choice of client or server is made,deployment changes typically result in application changes or rewrites.Because services are coupled to clients, change management is difficult.A few asynchronous applications exist today. Such applications arewritten directly to the messaging product APIs. Current asynchronousapplications are very dependent on the way applications run on a givenplatform. They are also error-prone, often unmanageable, and generallyinflexible.

There is a need for a system that allows platform independent,asynchronous applications to be built in a way that can support abusiness that is changing at Internet speed. Normally, change impliesinstability and unavailability. Moreover, the current models areinflexible.

In the emerging electronic commerce environment, neither instability,unavailability, nor inflexibility can be tolerated. Services must beplaced onto any platform that makes sense. Services must be able to use,or be used by, services on other platforms without knowing, at designtime, what platform choice may be made in the future at run time.Applications will need to portable, by providing an infrastructure thathides platform and transport details. Other components must allow datato be distributed. The system must allow qualities of service, such assecurity and monitoring, to be added without requiring application code.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The computing system architecture of the present invention is based upona peer-to-peer, asynchronous model. The architecture of the presentinvention specifies a set of infrastructure facilities that comprise aninter-enterprise operating system, which is referred to herein as theinter-prise operating system. The aim of the inter-prise operatingsystem is to provide all the facilities that make application coding aseasy in the new peer-to-peer asynchronous model as it is in the currenthierarchical, synchronous model. Each inter-prise operating systemcomponent defines an architectural area, and advances strategic goals inthat area. According to the present invention, services, which reside incontainers, are linked asynchronously by an inter-prise bus and use datafrom a virtual data store.

Services are applications that are formally registered with a servicerepository. Each service may play two roles, i.e., service provider orservice requester. In the peer-to-peer environment of the presentinvention, a service may be both a requestor and a provider.

A container is a component that hides the details of asynchronousmessaging and platform dependencies from the business application codeof the service. According to the present invention, there are two typesof containers, i.e., service requestor containers and service providercontainers. A service requestor container hides details of making arequest to the inter-prise bus either to request a service or publish anevent. From the perspective of the application residing within theservice requester container, the request is a simple call. A serviceprovider container hides details of servicing the request. From theperspective of the application residing in the service providercontainer, the application sees itself as being invoked locally. Thetwo-container model of the present invention makes programmingasynchronous service applications as easy as programming synchronousones.

The inter-prise bus provides a common way to connect services. The bushides details of the actual transport mechanisms from applications,making them transportable. A service provider needs to connect to theinter-prise bus in order to publish its services for use by requestsfrom other services. A service requestor needs to connect to the bus toutilize the services provided.

The inter-prise bus also provides a way for extra information, in theform of context, to be added to messages that flow between serviceapplications. Context is data that is usually not known to theapplication, but which flows within a request that it makes or eventthat it publishes. Examples of context include security context andsystem management context.

Most business services call or contain underlying data. In a centralizedenvironment, all the data can be locally stored, updated, andreferenced. However, in a distributed environment, an inquiry servicemay be remote from an updating service, and so forth. A virtual datastore according to the present invention hides the details of datadistribution, or request shipping, from the applications. The virtualdata store manages the data, and provides a view of the latency of thedata to those applications that need it.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a preferred embodiment of the inter-priseoperating system of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of the core stack components of the presentinvention.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of the processing model component of thepresent invention.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of the service model component of the presentinvention.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of the inter-prise bus component of thepresent invention.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of the data management model component of thepresent invention.

FIG. 7 is a flow diagram of service request interactions according tothe present invention.

FIG. 8 is a flow diagram of event channel interactions according to thepresent invention.

FIG. 9 is a flow diagram of mapped stream interactions according to thepresent invention.

FIG. 10 is a flow diagram of unmapped stream interactions according tothe present invention.

FIG. 11 is a block diagram illustrating the separation of invocationfrom function by the interaction broker component of the according tothe present invention.

FIG. 12 is a block diagram illustrating the structure of a serviceaccording to the present invention.

FIG. 13 is a block diagram illustrating a virtual data store accordingto the present invention.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

Referring now to the drawings, and first to FIG. 1, a block diagram ofan inter-prise operating system according to the present invention isdesignated generally by the numeral 11. According to the presentinvention, asynchronous services, such as a service requestor 13 and aservice provider 15, reside in containers 17 and 19, respectively. Aswill be explained in detail hereinafter, containers 17 and 19 simplifythe programming of applications by providing a way of naturally invokingservices according to a processing model and provide an environment inwhich services may run according to a services model.

Services 13 and 15 are linked by an inter-prise bus 21, which handlesmessaging between requesters 13 and providers 15. According to thepresent invention, a particular application can be either a servicerequestor or a service provider.

Services use data from a virtual data store 23. As will be explained indetail hereinafter, virtual data store 23 includes a posting service 25that receives data from service provider 15. Posting service 25 hasaccess to read/write storage 27. Virtual data store 23 also includes aninformation service 29 that provides information to service requester13. Information service 29 has access to read only storage 31. Data isselectively replicated, according to the present invention, fromread/write storage 27 to read-only storage 31. As will be explained indetail hereinafter, inter-prise operating system 11 also includes asecurity component 33 and a systems management component 35 linked tointer-prise bus 21.

Referring now to FIG. 2, there is illustrated a block diagram of thecore set of components of the inter-prise operating system of thepresent invention. The core set of components provides a distributedoperating system that allows application programmers to concentrate onbusiness logic and not worry about questions of distribution orrobustness at implementation time.

The core components of the inter-prise operating system of the presentinvention include a logical network model 37. The logical network modelprovides the physical connections that ties systems together. Accordingto the present invention, logical network model 37 is a new style ofnetwork that is application-aware. An inter-prise bus model 39 sits ontop of logical network model 37. Inter-prise bus 39 providesasynchronous communication and it packages messages with context.Inter-prise bus 39 hides the technology used to connect together thecommunicating partners.

A processing model 41 provides a requester container that allows usersto use inter-prise bus 39 to communicate without knowing details of theservice. According to the present invention, a requestor sees a simpleservice without the complexities of system integration issues. A servicemodel 43 provides a service container that allows the service to respondto messages without knowing the details of the requester. This meansthat the service can be written as a synchronous program without thedifficulties inherent in asynchronous programming.

A data management model 45 provides a virtual data store that gets datato where applications need it. Data management model 45 maintainsknowledge of data currency for use by applications. A security model 47provides security services for all parts of the inter-prise operatingsystem. Similarly, a system management model 49 provides facilities tomanage both the inter-prise operating system and the applications thatuse it.

Requestors and providers, indicated at block, 51 are parties external tointer-prise operating system 11. Requestors and providers typically haveconnections to other environments. In some cases, requesters andproviders may desire to operate in a synchronous manner or use toolsthat the inter-prise operating system of the present invention does notsupport. It is the responsibility of boundary nodes to convert theexternal requests and responses to and from the inter-prise operatingsystem.

Referring now to FIG. 3, a block diagram shows the internalsub-components and external interfaces of processing model 41.Processing model 41 defines how services use the inter-prise busfacilities to communicate. The processing model 41 defines a set ofsemantics, regardless of the details of the messages themselves.

The processing model simplifies the task of writing applications thatneed to interact directly with the inter-prise bus. In general,distributed programming is difficult. When one changes a program fromlocal to distributed programming, a set of new errors can occur, such asthe server being down and the client being up, or a request having timedout. Distributed programming problems are helped slightly by using asubsystem such as an Object Request Broker (ORB) or a CustomerInformation Control System (CICS).

Asynchronous programming is even more difficult. In an asynchronousprogram, there are extra states besides success or failure, such as notprocessed yet. The client has to make a second call to get results, andthe service has to have a component that listens for input. Nothing iscertain because the system has introduced time dependencies. Programmingdistributed, asynchronous systems is harder still. According to thepresent invention, the processing model of the present invention makesasynchronous, distributed applications as easy to code as synchronous,local applications.

The processing model of the present invention supports a move to a moreflexible business model by allowing code to be written in an event styleand then be subsequently exploited in a request style with no change.The processing model of the present invention allows separation of whatis run from the business service that is to be performed, which is acrucial transparency. Finally, the processing model of the presentinvention supports the notion of a bipartisan contract and compensatingactions if that contract is breached, thereby removing the definition ofprocess flow to a higher level from the worker performing anatomictransaction.

Interactions between services according to the present invention arenormally asynchronous, but they are always mediated by data flows. Thedata flows fall into two high-level categories. The first category ofdata flows is messages, which are discrete units of information.According to the present invention, there are two types of messages. Thefirst message type is a service request message, which is an applicationof the command design pattern. A service request is a request from amessage sender to a message receiver to perform a service, which may ormay not require a reply. The other type of message is an event, whichmay take the form of an event notification or a publish and subscribenotification.

The other category of data flows is streams, which are collections ofdata passed and processed as a sequence. There are two types of streams.The first type includes mapped streams, in which the stream is mappedonto some underlying structure, such as a file. The other type ofstreams includes unmapped streams, such as Unix pipes, in which thestream connects two services directly.

Returning to the concept of messages, messages consist of information,called a payload, plus header information for proper transport androuting of the message. A service request has imperative form, and itconsists of a command, plus associated parameters. An event notificationhas declarative form, and it consists of an event name plus associatedparameters.

Streams comprise a sequence of data flows, with no header information. Astream differs from a message in that a message typically encapsulates asingle piece of information. A stream encapsulates many such pieces,which need not necessarily be homogenous.

The decision about which style of data flow to use is influenced bywhether the sender has a stake in what happens once the receiverreceives the information. In the case of a service request, therequestor knows what the service does, and specifically desires acertain outcome. For example, a piece of order entry logic may need toknow that an order placement service exists that can satisfy itsrequirement before it replies to a caller that the order has beenaccepted. In that case, the order entry logic creates a placed customerorder request message and finds a service, via service discovery, thatsatisfies the correct requirements. An event notification is used whenthe message sender does not know or care to specify what the eventualoutcome may be. An event notification notifies any receivers that areinterested that an event has occurred, but what action to take is leftup to those receivers.

Streams are used for processing data in bulk. Batch processing should bedone using streams, because they enable the transition from batchprocessing to near real-time processing. This transition is possiblebecause one application streams to a file that is read as a stream byanother application. This indirect connection can later be converted toa more direct relationship in which the writing application streamsdirectly to the reading application without change. The choice of usingthe stream for near real-time computing is one of performance. Ratherthan generating a set of independent messages, the stream allows a bulktransfer of data, which can significantly reduce overhead.

Asynchronous communication according to the present invention providesmany benefits to component interactions. Asynchronous connections caninoculate against sympathy sickness. If the caller can complete makingthe request even if the service is down, the caller's availability isnot coupled to that of the service. Asynchronous communication is apowerful technique for providing scalability. Supporting various stylesof interaction through a common messaging mechanism provides flexibilityin the way services are tied together. The choice of data flow meansthat the architecture can exploit industry standard technology that hasa proven track record, and supplies crucial functions such as supportfor various levels for quality of service.

Events can be characterized into three types: system, application, andbusiness. System events identify actions within the underlyinginfrastructure. Examples include successful establishment of a networkconnection, reclamation of memory, message acknowledgements, spaceproblems on direct access storage devices (DASD), network connectionproblems, memory problems, and the like. System events are typicallycast in the vocabulary of operations personnel or systems programmer.Usually, systems events are non-persistent, and they do not poseproblems with security. For example, the inter-prise bus uses events toenable advertisements of services.

Application events signify significant action regarding an applicationcomponent, such as a program or a job. These can be timing events,required to schedule a job, database commits, completion events,successful handoffs to another component, or aborted processing events.Application events are typically cast in the vocabulary of theapplication developer. Because application events are so limited inscope, they can often by optimized into local calls at design time.

Business events signify occurrences, in the context of running afinancial services firm, such as orders being placed or filled, orcompanies making announcements. There are also business events that haveto do with running a business, such as hiring new people, announcingbonuses or option grants, or managing supplies. Business events aretypically cast in the vocabulary of the business customer, and thepersonnel who interact directly with them.

Streams are set up in two ways. In one way of setting up a stream,another process, usually a job or batch file, spells out the servicesand the streams that connect them. In a more dynamic mechanism, thestream is built when a request is made to open it, either for reading orwriting. Streams can be used for an interaction in which the writerknows the reader. For example, a dividend reinvestment process creates astream of update requests for a bulk balances updater service. Opening astream for writing at the beginning generates an event, i.e., bulkbalances update stream started. Closing the stream at the end generatesanother event, i.e., bulk balances update stream ended. These eventscreate and then destroy a stream that connects the dividend investmentprocess, which is the writer, to the bulk balances updater, which is thereader. The writing application checks for the potential availability ofthe service before writing the stream. The writing application may fallback to creating an individual event if no stream reader exists. Streamscan also be used when the reader is completely unknown. For example,when a quote service generates a stream of quotes.

The processing model of the present invention introduces the containerconcept. A container encapsulates vital systems integration functions,such as data access, transaction management, service invocation,security, and systems management, in a manner that provides a clean,clear separation of concerns for a business service. Systems integrationfunctions are used by specifying the service required through deploymentdescriptors or property sheets rather than through application code. Thebusiness service is implemented with no systems integration code. Thecontainer does the appropriate systems integration behavior as specifiedin the descriptor before invoking the service. From the perspective ofthe service requestor, the container is transparent. That is, theservice requestor does not see whether the container is there or not.

The container acts as an intermediary between business services and theinter-prise bus. The container applies primary services such as serviceinteraction, transactions, security, and systems management on behalf ofthe instances of the service at run time.

In discussing containers, it is useful to distinguish how containersoperate for service providers and how they operate for servicerequesters. While any container has at least the potential to operate onbehalf of both a service provider and a service requester, the roles aredifferent enough to make the distinction useful.

Containers decouple service providers from the style in which otherservices wish to interact with them. The business service exports itservices as a set of operations that can be called. The container thenmaps service requests, events, or streams to these operations.

Service provider containers enable participation in extended units ofwork, primarily through compensating actions. Support for extended unitsof work simplifies the task of creating services that can participate intransactional workflow. The essential task is to define a compensatingaction for every action that can be performed by the service. Thecompensating action should undo the effect of the action; morespecifically, it should return the state of the system to what it wouldhave been had the action never occurred.

Service provider containers can encapsulate security and systemmanagement policies on behalf of services. If the service is registeredin an access control list, for example, then the container can take careof authorization prior to service invocation. The mechanism forexploiting policies is similar to property sheets or deploymentdescriptors. The property sheets abstract out a set of attributes, andby assigning a value to the attribute, the service defines the policy bywhich it is to be governed. The container is then responsible forhandling the details of how the underlying security and managementsystems implement those policies.

The service requestor container isolates the complexities of interactionstyles the container can isolate a requestor from the location of aprovider, and even optimize for the case where the provider is local.The container can also hide details of the wire formats used by theunderlying transports. The service requestor container propagatescontext as necessary, thereby relieving the service of that burden. Abusiness service need not be aware that context has been passed with itor that the same context will be passed on with any message it sends.

Referring now to FIG. 4, there is shown a block diagram of the servicemodel 43 showing its external interfaces and internal subcomponents. Theservice model defines the concept of a service, explains the kinds ofservices to be found according to the present invention, and specifieshow services are developed for deployment on the inter-prise bus. Whilethe processing model is the large-grained, run-time view of thearchitecture of the present invention, the service model isfiner-grained and reveals some aspects of the implementation of theservices deployed on the bus. The service model is design, write, andbuild-time oriented.

The architecture of the present invention is service-oriented. Aservice-oriented architecture is related to, but distinguishable from,object-oriented and component-based architectures. The Object ManagementGroup's (OMG) Object Management Architecture (OMA) is an example of anobject-oriented architecture. Common Object Request Broker Architecture(CORBA) is a key component of OMA. Examples of component-basedarchitectures include Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) and Microsoft'sDistributed Common Object Model (DCOM). The commonality between object-,and component-oriented architectures, and the service-orientedarchitecture of the present invention is a focus on a unit ofmodularization. The service-oriented architecture differs from anobject-oriented architecture in several ways. The service-orientedarchitecture does not support inheritance. The service-orientedarchitecture is flexible in ways of communicating between services,whereas an object-oriented architecture defines interactions in terms ofbasic object operation and invocation style of object-orientedprogramming languages. The service-oriented architecture promotesstateless services, while objects are typically viewed as stateful.

The service-oriented architecture of the present invention also differsfrom a component-based architecture in several ways. Theservice-oriented architecture is platform independent, whilecomponent-based architectures are specific to a language ormiddleware/operating system environment. The service-orientedarchitecture is flexible in the ways in which components communicate,while a component-based architecture specifies the ways in whichcomponents communicate.

The key concepts in the service model are service, producer 71, andconsumer 73. According to the present invention, a service specifiesfunctionality, a producer implements the specified functionality, and aconsumer contracts with the producer that provides the service. Producerand consumer are roles that a single service can play. In some contexts,a service may act as a consumer, relying on the functionality providedby other services, and in other contexts it will act as a producer,supplying functionality.

According to the present invention, a service is defined by its output,or by the state changes it produces, or by the information it provides.A service can be viewed as a contract that guarantees results to servicerequesters. The roles of producer and consumer are independent ofinteraction styles. Producer signifies that a service produces a resultthat can be used by other services. The product may be in the form of ananswer or a change to system state. This distinction corresponds to thedistinction between functions and procedures in programming languages.Functions return results to their callers. Procedures return control,but no result. Consumers rely on these products.

Another way to look at services according to the present invention isthrough the interfaces they specify. Object-oriented and component-basedarchitectures are focused on one kind of application programminginterface, i.e., the set of operations exported by a service for use byother services. However, the object-oriented and component-based viewsdo not account for the relationship between two services when oneservice publishes events that are consumed by the other service. Inaddition, neither object-oriented nor component-based architecturesaccount for the relationship between two services when one publishesevents that are consumed by the other or when one writes to a streamthat is read by the other.

According to the present invention, a service can have one or more ofthree types of application programming interface. First, a service canhave an operation interface, which defines a set of operations that canbe called by other services. Second, a service can have an eventinterface, which defines a set of events that the service raises orhandles. Finally, a service can have a stream interface, which defines aset of streams that the service reads or writes. These interfaces arecrucial to register a service with the service discovery component ofthe inter-prise bus. Service definitions populate the service discoveryrepository.

Supporting three styles of interface gives the architecture of thepresent invention enormous flexibility. The three interfaces arefrequently alternatives. A service can be provided in one contextthrough an operation interface and in another context through an eventinterface. When the underlying functionality of the service is the same,it is undesirable to provide different versions of a service just tosupport these interfaces. Accordingly, the architecture of the presentinvention separates the business function from how it is invoked. In aservice based on an operation interface, a producer exports a number ofoperations and the consumer calls these operations directly, passingdata as needed. The called operation may call other operations asneeded. Similarly, in an event-driven service the producer goes into anevent loop and the consumer sends the event, again passing data asneeded.

Referring to FIG. 3 of the processing model, an event handler 73 cachesevents and an event dispatcher 75 decides what operation to call basedon the event. Finally, in a stream or bulk processing-based service theconsumer prepares bulk data and the producer accepts the data, goes intoa read loop, and calls operations as needed. From the perspective of theservice, each of these deployment styles amounts to the same thing. Anoperation is called and data is made available to it in the appropriatefashion. According to the present invention, the invocation mechanism isexternalized and made part of the architecture.

Referring now to FIG. 11, the mapping of the service invocation style tothe service is handled by the interaction broker component 77 of theprocessing model. Interaction broker 77 exposes a business service 79that has an operation interface internally as capable of handlingservice requests, events, or streams. Interaction broker 77 provides acontainer-like mechanism that encapsulates the generic capability tohandle a particular interface style. Interaction broker 77 includes arequest broker 81 that invokes an operation by business service 79 basedupon a service request 83. Interaction broker 77 includes an eventhandler 85, which performs an event-operation mapping to invoke businessservice 79 based upon an event 87. Finally, interaction broker 77includes a stream handler 89, which performs a data-type operationmapping to invoke business service 79 based upon a stream 91.

Referring now to FIG. 12, there is illustrated a block diagram of thestructure of a service. A business service 79 resides in a container 93that insulates the business service from details of how it was invokedand manages its run time efficiently. Business service 79 is made up ofa session object 95 and an entity object 97. Business service 79interacts with data management 23 via information service 29 for inquiryand posting service 25 for updates.

Stateless sessions 95 are the most common form of service objectaccording to the present invention. Most services are based on a sessionbecause it does not imply a binding between the application and aparticular container, thereby providing good availability andscalability characteristics. The session is used as a way of expressinga process 99 or business rule, which may include accessing entityobjects which use data management for a persistent state store.

While entity object 97 is provided, sessions do not always instantiateentities. In general, entities are larger-grained, and may containreferences to other objects within them. Even when a session uses stateinformation associated with an entity, it may not be desirable toinstantiate the entity, usually for performance reasons. Instead ofinstantiating an entity, a service may simply access its state inanother representation, e.g., strings. Alternatively, the session mayinstantiate the entity, but without fully populating its state. Forexample, some relationships may be left uninstantiated. The crucialconsideration is whether the business function relies on the businessrules/logic defined in the entity. If the rules or logic are required,then the entity should be instantiated. If not, then performanceoptimizations are encouraged.

Referring now to FIG. 5, there is shown a block diagram of the internalsubcomponents of, and the external interfaces to, inter-prise bus 39.Bus 39 includes those components that enable cooperating platforms toconverse once a network is established. These components include theparts that connect the platforms and the messages on them. Theinter-prise bus of the present invention is an abstraction of messagingand it allows applications, and other system level components, tooperate without knowledge of messaging transport syntax and semantics.As will be explained in detail hereinafter, bus 39 includes a servicediscovery component 101, a context manager component 103, and a channelmanager component 105.

According to the present invention, applications are not aware of, orconcerned with, which messaging infrastructure is used. Similarly, bus39 understands services and interaction styles, but the knowledge ofapplications is left to the processing model component. However, bus 39has a set of messaging styles that closely match those of the processingmodel in order to support the styles efficiently. The first interactionstyle is request/reply messaging, in which services are advertised by acontainer on behalf of an application. Bus 39 provides both the means ofadvertising and the means to make contact with the applicationcontainer. The bus does not handle starting the application to performthe service, or other process management issues, which are the job ofthe container part of the processing model.

Events are the second interaction style. In this style, an applicationcontainer publishes that an event has occurred. Other parties registertheir interest in events by subscription. The bus, through its servicediscovery component 101, provides services to advertise publisher'sintentions, to discover those intentions, and a mechanism to connectwith a publisher. The bus is responsible for connecting the publishersand subscribers, regardless of where they are. It may do so by usingproxies, brokers, or any other technique that it chooses. Applicationsare as ignorant of the details as possible.

The final interaction style is streams. This style is a bulk or batchstyle in which one application acts as a source of data and one acts asa sink. The source application sends the sink application a stream ofdata. The role of the bus is to provide a mechanism that allows thesource and sink to communicate. If the two applications do not exist atthe same time, the bus provides a tank that keeps the data sent by thesource until the sink is ready, or until the data has expired.

The fundamental building block of the inter-prise bus is a channel,which is a named logical construct that allows code to have transportand location transparency. The bus of the present invention providesinterfaces to open, close, read to, and write from all channels for lowlevel callers.

Channels according to the present invention exist in three subtypes. Arequest, and possibly a response, flows over a service channel. Theservice channel is established after a service discovery call haslocated a suitable service. Events are published over an event channel.An event channel is established explicitly or implicitly by thepublisher code prior to generating an event. Subchannels are theconstruct by which subscribers designate the messages that they want tosee by logical name. There may be many subchannels per channel. Finally,a stream is a channel into which a set of data is placed, by a sourcethat is to be consumed by a sink. The stream provides efficiency andserialization, because it allows a single sink to operate on a set ofdata.

According to the present invention, there are two types of streams. Amapped stream is mapped onto a tank. A tank is an externally namedobject that is known to both the source and the sink. An unmapped streamis not mapped to a tank. Rather, an unmapped stream is known only by itsdynamically generated handle, which is passed from source to sink aspart of an event or a request.

The operation of services provided by the inter-prise bus according tothe present invention is illustrated with respect to FIGS. 7-10.Referring first to FIG. 7, a service channel is a connection between aservice provider 15 and requestors, such as requester 13. According tothe present invention, service provider 15 resides in a container 19. Aservice channel is built when requested by the service advertising itsavailability. More specifically, container 19 sends an open channelmessage 115 to channel manager 105 of bus 39. Channel manager component105 returns a handle 117, which is the logical name of the servicechannel, to container 19 and container 19 advertises the serviceprovided by service 15, as indicated at 119, with service discoverycomponent 101 of bus 39. The advertisement contains the handle.

When requestor 13 needs a service, its container 17 sends a find servicemessage 123 to service discovery component 101. In response, servicediscovery component 101 returns the handle, as indicated at 125, torequestor 113. Then, requestor 13 writes, as indicated at 129, a request131 to container 19. After writing the request, requester sends a readmessage 139 to bus 39. Container 19 reads the request and invokesservice 15, as indicated at 135. Service 15 returns a result tocontainer 19, as indicated at 137. Container 19 then sends a replymessage 141 to container 17. Requestor 13 reads the reply as a response143. When service 15 goes out of service, container 19 sends ade-advertise message 145 to service discovery component 101 and a closechannel message 147 to channel manager component 105 of bus 39.

Referring now to FIG. 8, there is shown event channel interactionsaccording to the present invention. An event channel is a virtualconnection between publishers and subscribers. An event channel is builtwhen a publication high-level subject is defined and it is destroyedwhen that subject is deleted. The container 19 of a publisher 151requests to open an event channel with channel manager 151, as indicatedat 153. The channel manager component 105 of bus 39 returns a handleidentifying the event channel to container 19, as indicated at 155.Then, container 19 advertises publication, including the handle thatidentifies the event channel, with service discovery component 101, asindicated at 157. The advertisement includes the handle that identifiesthe event channel. container 17 associated with a subscriber 159 sends afind channel message to service discovery component 101, as indicated at161. Service discovery component 101 returns the handle, as indicated at162. Then, requester 159 subscribes by opening the event channel withthe handle, as indicated at 163. Then, requester 159 indicates itsavailability to read from the channel, as indicated at 165. Publisher151 writes, at 167, events 169 to bus 39 and requestor 159 reads theevents from bus 39. When requestor has read the events, it can close theevent channel, as indicated at 171. When publisher 151 desires to quitpublication, it sends a remove publication message 173 to servicediscovery component 101, and sends a close event channel message, 175 tochannel manager component 105 of bus 39.

Referring now to FIG. 9, there is illustrated a mapped stream accordingto the present invention. In a mapped stream, a source 181 writes datato a tank 183 provided by channel manager component 105 of bus 39. Themapped stream channel is identified by the logical name of the tank,which is known to both the source and the sink. A sink 185 reads thedata from tank 183. More specifically, source 181 sends an open channelmessage 187 to bus 39. Channel manager component 105 of bus 39 openstank 183, as indicated at 189. Then, source 181 writes the data, asindicated at 191, to bus 39. Bus 39 in turn writes the data to tank 183,as indicated at 193. At the conclusion of writing the data, source 181sends a close channel message 195 to bus 139, and bus 139 sends an endof stream message 197 to tank 183.

When sink 185 desires to read data from the stream, it sends an openchannel message 199 and a read message 201 to channel manager component105 of bus 39. Bus 39 in turn sends a read message 203 to tank 183,whereupon sink 185 reads the data from tank 183, as indicated at 205.When sink 185 is through reading the data, it sends a close channelmessage 207 to bus 39.

Referring now to FIG. 10, there is illustrated unmapped streaminteractions according to the present invention. A source 181 opens achannel to bus 39, as indicated at 211. Bus 39 returns a handle tosource 181, as indicated at 213. Source 181 transmits the handle to sink185, as indicated at 215. Sink 185 uses the handle to open the channel,as indicated at 217. Then, source 181 and sink 185 write and read to andfrom, respectively, the stream identified by the handle. At theconclusion of the session, source 181 and sink 185 close the channel, asindicated at 219 and 221, respectively.

Every unit of data that flows on the bus is called a message. The bus isdesigned to be neutral on the subject of the internal data format, orpayload, that two or more cooperating processes use. The data format canbe any format the two parties agree on.

According to the present invention, every message on the bus can consistof context and data. Context is information that is relevant to theprocessing of the request, but it does not refer to the substance of theevent, request, or stream. There are user-defined contexts, andsystem-defined contexts such as security, audit, and monitoring.

The bus provides mechanisms to set and get contexts, and it includes away of invoking individual context managers 102 (FIG. 5) when theapplication makes requests of the bus, or when messages are received.When messages are sent, the context is packaged with the data by thebus. When messages are received, the bus strips the context off, readyfor retrieval by the context managers. For example, when an applicationopens a channel, the security manager is called to verify that thisapplication is authorized for use of the channel. As part of thatprocess, the security manager also sets the channel security contextfrom the application security context. If that context remainsunchanged, it is sent with the message on a subsequent write request. Onthe receiving system, the security context is populated from themessage. The security manager is invoked to check if this request caninvoke the service. The security manager calls the bus to obtain thecontext and perform the check. Monitoring and audit contexts work insimilar ways.

FIG. 6 illustrates the external interfaces to, and the internalsubcomponents of, data management component 45. A database manager 231is responsible for unit of work data preservation and physical andlogical storage of the data and metadata. Information service 29 is asubcomponent that gives a response back to callers about the data itfronts and the logic it contains. Information service 29 may use data,logic, and cache to determine the response. In addition to the data,information service 29 can return information about latency. Informationservice 29 is responsible for calling the security manager 33 (FIG. 1)for any high-level security abstractions, such as business rules aboutwho has access to data based upon account information. However,information service 29 is not responsible for standard data checking,for which data manager 231 calls on the security manager, as a matter ofcourse.

Posting service 25 applies updates to databases and triggers cachecontroller 233 calls that are needed locally. Publication events overthe inter-prise bus that inform interested parties that data has changedare performed by posting service 25. Cache controller 233 is called withan update and refreshes the cache that it manages for informationservice 29.

A replication manager 235 is an encapsulation, at the system level, of ahook into database manager 231. Replication manager 235 is triggered byupdates and a set of posting services. Replication manager 235 uses theinter-prise bus to replicate data from the update originator to targetsystems and to cause the encapsulated posting services to run there.Replication manager 235 includes logic to preserve unit of work updates,as well as logic to ensure that only the latest version of a row isapplied to a target site. A data currency manager 237 has interfacesthat information service 29 can use to determine which version of thedatabase to use, i.e., real-time or point-in-time, and what the latencyof the data is. Data currency manager 237 gets its information fromdatabase manager 231 and replication manager 235. A credential manager239 grants credentials. Credential manager 239 is called by security togenerate or retrieve credentials when a user authenticates to thesystem. Some credentials are stored in a directory structure and someare generated after access to business services.

FIG. 13 illustrates the functional relationship between components ofvirtual data store 23 according to the present invention. Updates 240are received at posting service 25 and posted to read/write database 27.Posting service 25 also triggers cache controller 233 calls that areneed locally. Data from read/write database 27 is selectively replicatedto distributed read only databases 31 by replication manager 235.Information service 29 responds to inquiries 241 with data from readonly data 31 or cache 250, as appropriate. Information service 29 usescurrency manager 237 to determine (1) which version of data to use and(2) what the latency of the data is.

1-48. (canceled)
 49. A computing system, which comprises: a busincluding a channel manager component that provides for at least threedifferent types of channels; a physical memory operatively coupled tosaid bus; a service requestor container operatively coupled to said bus,said service requester container containing a service requesterapplication; a service provider container operatively coupled to saidbus, said service provider container containing a service providerapplication; and, a virtual data store operatively coupled to saidservice requester container and to said service provider container. 50.The computing system as claimed in claim 49, wherein the channel managercomponent is adapted to a create channel in response to receipt of anopen channel message from a first container, and further wherein each ofsaid channels is identified by a logical channel name.
 51. The computingsystem as claimed in claim 50, wherein said logical channel name is ahandle dynamically created by said channel manager component.
 52. Thecomputing system as claimed in claim 50, wherein said channel managercomponent is adapted to create a tank, and said logical name is a nameof said tank.
 53. The computing system as claimed in claim 50, whereinsaid channel is a service channel.
 54. The computing system as claimedin claim 50, wherein said channel is an event channel.
 55. The computingsystem as claimed in claim 50, wherein said channel is an unmappedstream.
 56. The computing system as claimed in claim 50, wherein saidchannel is a mapped stream.
 57. The computing system as claimed in claim49, wherein said virtual data store comprises: a posting service coupledto receive data updates from said service provider container; a firstdatabase coupled to said posting service; an information service coupledto provide data in response to inquiries from said service requestorcontainer; at least one second database coupled to said posting service;and, a replication manager coupled between said first database and saidat least one second database for selectively replicating data from saidfirst database to said second database.
 58. The computing system asclaimed in claim 57, wherein said information service includes means forcalling a security manager for security information.
 59. The computingsystem as claimed in claim 57, wherein said replication manager includeslogic to preserve unit of work updates.
 60. The computing system asclaimed in claim 57, wherein said replication manager includes logic toensure that only the latest version of data is replicated to said atleast one second database.
 61. The computing system as claimed in claim57, including a data currency manager coupled to said informationservice to enable said information service to determine what version ofdata to use to satisfy a inquiry from said service requestor container.62. A computing system, which comprises: a bus, wherein the bus includesa channel manager component that provides for at least three differenttypes of channels which provide for communication between a plurality ofdifferent service requesters and a plurality of different serviceproviders, a service discovery component that identifies a plurality ofdifferent types of interfaces for the plurality of different serviceproviders, wherein the different types of channels correspond to theplurality of different types of interfaces, and a context managercomponent that retrieves context sent through the bus; a data managementcomponent operatively coupled to said bus, said data managementcomponent containing a database manager configured to store data in aphysical memory operatively coupled with the bus; a service requestorcontainer operatively coupled to said bus, said service requestorcontainer containing a service requestor application; and a serviceprovider container operatively coupled to said bus, said serviceprovider container containing a service provider application, whereinthe service provider container includes an interaction broker component,said interaction broker providing an interface between said bus and saidservice provider application.
 63. The computer system as claimed inclaim 62, wherein each of said service provider container and saidservice requestor container comprises: an operation interface defining aset of operations of a business service application that can be calledby other business services; an event interface defining a set of eventsthat can be raised or handled by said business service application; and,a stream interface defining a set of streams that said business serviceapplication reads or writes.
 64. The computer system as claimed in claim62, wherein the physical memory comprises one or more direct accessstorage devices.
 65. The computer system as claimed in claim 62, whereinthe context manager is configured to retrieve context propagated by theservice requestor container, the context comprising an audit context.66. The computer system as claimed in claim 62, wherein the contextmanager component is adapted to determine if a container is authorizedto use a channel.
 67. The computer system as claimed in claim 65,wherein the context manager calls the bus obtain security context from amessage sent to the container.
 68. The computer system as claimed inclaim 62, wherein the channel manager component provides for a servicechannel, an event channel, and a stream channel.
 69. The computingsystem as claimed in claim 49, wherein said channel manager component isadapted to create a channel in response to receipt of an open channelmessage from a first container wherein each of said channels isidentified by a logical channel name.
 70. The computing system asclaimed in claim 69, wherein said logical channel name is a handledynamically created by said channel manager component.
 71. The computingsystem as claimed in claim 69, wherein said channel manager component isadapted to create a tank, and said logical name is a name of said tank.72. The computing system as claimed in claim 72, wherein the firstcontainer is adapted to write data to the tank, the system furthercomprising a second container adapted to read the data from the tank.73. The computing system as claimed in claim 73, wherein said channelmanager component is adapted to close a channel in response to receiptof a close channel message from the second container.
 74. The computingsystem as claimed in claim 62, wherein said bus is operatively coupledto a computer server.